*FreeRide.com Ditches Third of Its Staff

Internet loyalty company FreeRide.com laid off more than a third of its staff last week in an effort to lighten the load on its way to profitability.

"We recently did go through a restructuring," said Lisa Dowdy, spokeswoman for FreeRide.com, New York. "We felt we needed to be self sufficient so we did cut back staff in order to reach self sufficiency so we would not be dependent on outside funding."

According to Dowdy approximately 48 of the company's 148 employees were let go. Although a former employee who asked not to be identified pegged the downsizing as being closer to 50 percent of the staff.

This comes on the heels of industry leader MyPoints.com's announcement earlier this month that it was shedding 123 employees. Seventy-six went to MagnaCash, which was spun off from the company, and 47 were laid off.